Fifty-Two Stories

THE NEW DACHA

I

Two miles from the village of Obruchanovo an enormous bridge was being built. From the village, which stood high on a steep bank, its latticed framework could be seen, and in foggy weather, and on quiet winter days, when its thin iron rafters and all the scaffolding around were covered with hoarfrost, it presented a picturesque and even fantastic sight. The engineer Kucherov, the builder of the bridge, a stout, broad-shouldered, bearded man in a soft, crumpled cap, sometimes drove through the village in a racing droshky or a carriage; sometimes on holidays vagabonds who worked on the bridge turned up; they begged for alms, laughed at the peasant women, and occasionally made off with things. But that happened rarely. Ordinarily the days passed quietly and peacefully, as if there were no building at all, and only in the evening, when bonfires were lit by the bridge, did the wind bring the faint sound of the tramps singing. And sometimes during the day a mournful metallic sound was heard: dong…dong…dong…

One day the engineer Kucherov’s wife came to visit. She liked the banks of the river and the magnificent view over the green valley with its hamlets, churches, flocks, and she started asking her husband to buy a small plot of land and build a dacha there. The husband obeyed. They bought fifty acres of land, and on the high bank, in a clearing, where the Obruchanovo cows used to graze, they built a beautiful two-story house with a terrace, balconies, a tower and a spire, on which a flag was raised on Sundays—built it in only three months, and then all winter planted big trees, and when spring came and everything around turned green, there were already allées in the new estate, a gardener and two workmen in white aprons were digging near the house, a little fountain spouted, and a mirror globe shone so brightly that it was painful to look at. And this estate already had a name: the New Dacha.

On a clear, warm morning at the end of May, two horses were brought to Rodion Petrov, the Obruchanovo blacksmith, to be re-shod. They were from the New Dacha. The horses were white as snow, sleek, well-fed, and strikingly resembled each other.

“Perfect swans!” Rodion exclaimed, looking at them in awe.

His wife Stepanida, his children and grandchildren came outside to look. A crowd gradually gathered. The Lychkovs came, father and son, both beardless from birth, with swollen faces and hatless. Kozov also came, a tall, skinny old man with a long, narrow beard and a stick with a crook; he kept winking his sly eyes and smiling mockingly, as if he knew something.

“It’s only that they’re white, otherwise what?” he said. “Feed mine oats and they’ll be just as smooth. Hitch ’em to a plow and whip ’em…”

The coachman only glanced at him with scorn and did not say a word. And later, while the fire was heating up in the smithy, the coachman stood talking and smoking cigarettes. The peasants learned many details from him: his masters were rich; earlier, before her marriage, the mistress, Elena Ivanovna, had lived in Moscow as a poor governess; she was kind, compassionate, and liked to help the poor. On the new estate, he went on telling them, there will be no plowing, no sowing, they will live only for their own pleasure, only so as to breathe the clean air. When he finished and led the horses back, he was followed by a crowd of boys, dogs barked, and Kozov, following them with his eyes, winked mockingly.

“So-o-ome landowners!” he said. “They build a house, buy horses, but they’ve probably got nothing to eat. So-o-ome landowners!”

Kozov began somehow at once to hate the new estate, and the white horses, and the well-fed, handsome coachman. He himself was a single man, a widower; his life was boring (he was prevented from working by some illness which he called now a hoornia, now worms); he received money for subsistence from his son, who worked in a pastry shop in Kharkov, and from early morning till evening he wandered idly along the riverbank or around the village, and if he saw, for instance, a peasant carrying a log or fishing, he would say: “That log’s deadwood, rotten,” or “Fish don’t bite in such weather.” During a dry spell, he would say there would be no rain before the frost, and when it rained, he would say now everything in the fields was going to rot and perish. And all the while he kept winking, as if he knew something.

On the estate in the evenings they burned Bengal lights and set off fireworks, and a boat with red lamps went sailing past Obruchanovo. One morning the engineer’s wife, Elena Ivanovna, came to the village with her little daughter in a carriage with yellow wheels, drawn by a pair of dark bay ponies; both mother and daughter were wearing straw hats with broad brims bent down to their ears.

This was just the time of the dung carting, and the blacksmith Rodion, a tall, gaunt old man, hatless, barefoot, with a fork on his shoulder, stood by his filthy, ugly cart, looking at the ponies in bewilderment, and his face showed clearly that he had never seen such small horses before.

“It’s Kucherov’s woman!” people whispered all around. “Look, it’s Kucherov’s woman!”

Elena Ivanovna kept glancing at the cottages as if she were choosing, then stopped the horses by the poorest cottage, where there were so many children’s heads in the windows—blond, dark, red. Stepanida, Rodion’s wife, a stout old woman, ran out of the cottage, the kerchief slipped from her gray head, she looked at the carriage against the sun, and her face smiled and winced as if she were blind.

“This is for your children,” Elena Ivanovna said and handed her three roubles.

Stepanida suddenly burst into tears and bowed to the ground. Rodion also dropped down, displaying his broad, tanned bald spot and almost snagging his wife’s side with his fork. Elena Ivanovna became embarrassed and drove away.

II

The Lychkovs, father and son, caught two workhorses, one pony, and a broad-muzzled Aalhaus bull calf on their meadow, and together with red-headed Volodka, the son of the blacksmith Rodion, led them to the village. They called the headman, took witnesses, and went to look at the damage.

“All right, let ’em!” said Kozov, winking. “Go o-o-on! Let ’em squirm a bit now, these engineers! They think there’s no justice? All right! Send for the police, draw up a report!…”

“Draw up a report!” Volodka repeated.

“I don’t want to leave it like this!” Lychkov the son was shouting, shouting louder and louder, and that seemed to make his beardless face swell even more. “It’s some new fashion! If you let them, they’ll trample down all the meadows! They’ve got no full right to bully people! There are no serfs now!”

“There are no serfs now!” Volodka repeated.

“We lived without a bridge,” Lychkov the father said sullenly, “we didn’t ask for it, what do we need a bridge for? We don’t want it!”

“Brothers, good Orthodox people! We can’t leave it like this!”

“All right, go o-o-on!” Kozov winked. “Let ’em squirm a bit now! So-o-ome landowners!”

They headed back to the village, and all the while they walked, Lychkov the son beat himself on the chest with his fist and shouted, and Volodka also shouted, repeating his words. And in the village, meanwhile, a whole crowd had gathered around the thoroughbred bull calf and the horses. The bull calf was embarrassed and looked from under his brow, but suddenly he lowered his muzzle to the ground and ran, kicking up his hind legs. Kozov got frightened and waved his stick at him, and they all burst out laughing. Then they locked up the beasts and began to wait.

In the evening the engineer sent five roubles for the damages, and the two horses, the pony, and the bull calf, unfed and unwatered, went back home, hanging their heads like guilty men, as if they were being led out to execution.

Having received five roubles, the Lychkovs, father and son, the headman, and Volodka crossed the river in a boat, and on the other side went to the village of Kryakovo, where there was a pot-house, and reveled there for a long time. Their singing and the young Lychkov’s shouting could be heard. In the village the womenfolk worried and did not sleep all night. Rodion also did not sleep.

“It’s a bad business,” he kept saying, tossing from side to side and sighing. “The master will be angry, he’ll have us up in court…The master’s been offended…ohh, offended, it’s bad.”

One day the peasants, and Rodion in their number, went to their communal forest to do the haymaking, and on the way back they met the engineer. He was wearing a red calico shirt and high boots; behind him followed a pointer, his long tongue hanging out.

“Hello, brothers!” he said.

The peasants stopped and took their hats off.

“I’ve been meaning to talk with you for a long time now, brothers,” he went on. “The thing is this. Every day since early spring your herd has been coming to my garden and woods. Everything gets trampled, the pigs root around in the meadow, muck up the vegetable patch, and all the young trees in the woods have vanished. There’s no dealing with your herdsmen; you ask them something, and they get rude. Damage is done every day, and I do nothing, I don’t fine you, I don’t complain, and meanwhile you penned up my horses and my bull calf and took five roubles from me. Is that good? Do you call it neighborly?” he went on, and his voice was gentle, persuasive, and his look was not severe. “Is this the way decent people behave? A week ago one of you cut down two young oaks in my woods. You dug up the road to Eresnevo, and now I have to make a two-mile detour. Why do you harm me at every step? What wrong have I done you, tell me, for God’s sake? My wife and I try very hard to live in peace and harmony with you; we help the peasants all we can. My wife is a kind, warmhearted woman, she doesn’t refuse to help, it’s her dream to be of use to you and your children. But you repay our good with ill. It’s unfair, brothers. Think about it. I ask you earnestly to think about it. We treat you humanely, you should repay us in kind.”

He turned and left. The peasants stood there for a while, put on their hats, and went on. Rodion, who understood what was said to him not as it was meant, but always in some way of his own, sighed and said:

“We’ve got to pay it back. Pay it back, I say, brothers, in kind…”

They reached the village in silence. Having come home, Rodion said a prayer, took off his boots, and sat down on the bench beside his wife. When he and Stepanida were at home, they always sat next to each other and outside they always walked next to each other, they always ate, drank, and slept together, and the older they grew, the more they loved each other. Their cottage was crowded, hot, there were children everywhere—on the floor, on the windowsills, on the stove¹…Stepanida, though she was getting on in years, still bore children, and now, looking at the heap of children, it was hard to tell which were Rodion’s and which Volodka’s. Volodka’s wife, Lukerya, an unattractive young woman with bulging eyes and a bird-like nose, was kneading dough in a tub; Volodka himself was sitting on the stove, his legs hanging down.

“On the road by Nikita’s buckwheat, you know…the engineer and his dog…,” Rodion began, after resting, scratching his sides and elbows. “You’ve got to pay it back, he says…In kind, he says…In kind or not, but ten kopecks a household it should be. We’ve harmed the master a lot. I feel sorry…”

“We lived without a bridge,” Volodka said, not looking at anyone, “and we have no wish.”

“Go on! It’s a government bridge.”

“We have no wish.”

“Nobody’s asking you. Drop it!”

“ ‘Nobody’s asking’…,” Volodka mimicked. “We’ve got nowhere to go, what do we need a bridge for? When need be, we can cross in a boat.”

Someone outside knocked so hard on the window that the whole cottage seemed to shake.

“Is Volodka there?” came the voice of Lychkov the son. “Volodka, come out, let’s go!”

Volodka jumped off the stove and started looking for his cap.

“Don’t go, Volodya,” Rodion said timidly. “Don’t go with them, sonny. You’re stupid as a little child, and they won’t teach you any good. Don’t go!”

“Don’t go, sonny!” begged Stepanida, and she blinked, getting ready to weep. “They must be calling you to the pot-house.”

“ ‘To the pot-house’…,” Volodya mimicked.

“You’ll come home drunk again, you Herod-dog!” said Lukerya, looking at him spitefully. “Go, go, and I hope you burn up with vodka, you tail-less Satan!”

“Shut up!” cried Volodka.

“They married me off to a fool, a red-haired drunkard—me, a wretched orphan—they ruined me…,” Lukerya wailed, wiping her face with her hand, which was all covered with dough. “I wish I’d never set eyes on you!”

Volodka hit her on the ear and left.

III

Elena Ivanovna and her little daughter came to the village on foot. They were taking a walk. It happened to be Sunday, and the women and girls had come outside in their bright dresses. Rodion and Stepanida, who were sitting next to each other on the porch, bowed and smiled to Elena Ivanovna and her girl as if to acquaintances. Ten or more children looked out at them through the windows; their faces expressed perplexity and curiosity, and whispering was heard.

“Kucherov’s woman! It’s Kucherov’s woman!”

“Hello,” Elena Ivanovna said and stopped; after a pause, she asked, “Well, how are you doing?”

“We’re doing all right, God be thanked!” Rodion replied in a quick patter. “We live, as you see.”

“As if this is a life!” Stepanida smirked. “You can see for yourself, lady, dearest, it’s poverty! We’re fourteen in the family, and only two breadwinners. They call us blacksmiths, but when a horse is brought to be shod, there’s no coal, no money to buy it. It’s torment, lady,” she went on, and started laughing. “A-ah, what torment!”

Elena Ivanovna sat down on the porch and, embracing her girl, fell to thinking about something, and the girl, too, judging by her face, had some cheerless thoughts wandering in her head; brooding, she toyed with the pretty lace parasol she took from her mother’s hands.

“Poverty!” said Rodion. “There’s many cares, we work—and there’s no end in sight. Now God isn’t sending rain…We don’t live well, that’s for sure.”

“In this life it’s hard for you,” said Elena Ivanovna, “but in the other world you’ll be happy.”

Rodion did not understand her and only coughed into his fist in response. And Stepanida said:

“Lady, dearest, for a rich man things will be well in the other world, too. A rich man lights candles, offers prayer services, gives alms, but what about a peasant? You’ve got no time to cross yourself, lowest of the low, there’s no way to save yourself. Many sins also come from poverty, out of grief we all quarrel like dogs, never say a decent word, and what doesn’t go on, dearest lady—God forbid! It must be there’s no happiness for us either in the other world or in this one. All happiness goes to the rich.”

She spoke cheerfully; obviously, she had long been used to talking about her hard life. And Rodion also smiled; he was pleased that his old woman was so intelligent and garrulous.

“It only seems that things are easy for the rich,” said Elena Ivanovna. “Every person has his grief. We, my husband and I, aren’t poor, we have means, but are we happy? I’m still young, but I already have four children; they’re sick all the time, and I’m also sick and constantly being treated.”

“And what kind of sickness is it?” asked Rodion.

“A woman’s. I can’t sleep, headaches give me no peace. I’m sitting here, talking, but something’s not right in my head, I’m weak all over, and I agree that the hardest work is better than such a condition. And my soul is also not at peace. I constantly worry about the children and my husband. There’s some sort of grief in every family, and so there is in ours. I’m not from the gentry. My grandfather was a simple peasant, my father went into trade in Moscow and was also a simple man. But my husband’s parents are noble and rich. They didn’t want him to marry me, but he disobeyed, quarreled with them, and they still haven’t forgiven us. This upsets my husband, worries him, keeps him in constant anxiety. He loves his mother, loves her very much. Well, and I’m upset, too. My soul aches.”

Around Rodion’s cottage peasants, men and women, were already standing and listening. Kozov also came and stopped, twitching his long, narrow beard. The Lychkovs, father and son, came.

“And, of course, you can’t be happy and content unless you feel you’re in your own place,” Elena Ivanovna went on. “Each of you has his own strip of land, each of you works and knows why he works; my husband builds bridges—in a word, each of you has his own place. And me? I just walk around. I don’t have my own land, I don’t work, and I feel like a stranger. I’m saying all this so that you won’t judge by external appearances. If somebody wears expensive clothes and is well off, that still doesn’t mean that he’s pleased with his life.”

She got up to leave and took her daughter by the hand.

“I like it here with you very much,” she said and smiled, and by that weak, timid smile one could tell how unwell she really was, how young she was still, and how attractive. She had a pale, lean face with dark eyebrows, and blond hair. And the girl was just like her mother, lean, blond, and slender. They smelled of perfume.

“I like the river, and the forest, and the village…,” Elena Ivanovna went on. “I could live here all my life, and it seems to me that here I would recover my health and find my place. I want, I passionately want to help you, to be useful, to be close to you. I know how needy you are, and what I don’t know, I feel, I guess with my heart. I’m sick, weak, and for me it’s probably already impossible to change my life as I’d like to. But I have children, I’ll try to raise them so that they’re accustomed to you and love you. I’ll constantly instill in them that their lives belong not to them, but to you. Only I ask you earnestly, I beg you, trust us, be friends with us. My husband is a kind, good man. Don’t upset him, don’t vex him. He’s sensitive about every little thing, and yesterday, for instance, your herd got into our vegetable garden, and one of you broke the wattle fence at our apiary, and this attitude drives my husband to despair. I beg you,” she went on in a pleading voice, clasping her hands on her breast, “I beg you, treat us as good neighbors, let us live in peace! They say a bad peace is better than a good quarrel, and ‘Don’t buy a house, buy a neighbor.’ I repeat, my husband is a kind man, a good man; if all goes well, I promise you, we’ll do everything in our power; we’ll repair the roads, we’ll build a school for your children. I promise you.”

“We humbly thank you, for sure, lady,” said Lychkov the father, looking at the ground. “You’re educated, you know better. Only you see, in Eresnevo a rich peasant, Ravenov, promised to build a school, he also said ‘I’ll do this, I’ll do that,’ and only put up the frame and quit, and then the peasants were forced to roof it and finish it—a thousand roubles went on it. It was nothing to Ravenov, he just stroked his beard, but it was kind of hurtful for the peasants.”

“That was the raven, and now the rook’s come flying,” Kozov said and winked.

Laughter was heard.

“We don’t need a school,” Volodka said sullenly. “Our children go to Petrovskoe, and let them. We have no wish.”

Elena Ivanovna somehow suddenly became timid. She grew pale, pinched, cringed all over, as if she had been touched by something coarse, and walked off without saying another word. And she walked more and more quickly, without looking back.

“Lady!” Rodion called out, walking after her. “Lady, wait, I’ve got something to tell you.”

He followed right behind her, without his hat, and spoke softly, as if begging for alms.

“Lady! Wait, I’ve got something to tell you.”

They left the village, and Elena Ivanovna stopped in the shade of an old rowan tree, near somebody’s cart.

“Don’t be offended, lady,” said Rodion. “It’s nothing! Just be patient. Be patient for a couple of years. You’ll live here, you’ll be patient, and it’ll all come round. Our folk are good, peaceable…decent enough folk, I’m telling you as God is my witness. Don’t look at Kozov and the Lychkovs, or my Volodka, he’s a little fool: he listens to whoever speaks first. The rest are peaceable folk, they keep mum…Some would be glad to say a word in all conscience, to stand up for you, I mean, but they can’t. There’s soul, there’s conscience, but they’ve got no tongue. Don’t be offended…be patient…It’s nothing!”

Elena Ivanovna looked at the wide, calm river, thinking about something, and tears flowed down her cheeks. And Rodion was confused by these tears; he all but wept himself.

“Never mind…,” he murmured. “Be patient for a couple of little years. The school can be done, and the roads can be done, only not right away…Say, for example, you want to sow wheat on that hillock: so first root it up, dig out all the stones, then plow it, go on and on…And so, with our folk, I mean…it’s the same, go on and on, and you’ll manage.”

The crowd separated from Rodion’s cottage and came down the street in the direction of the rowan tree. They struck up a song, a concertina played. And they drew nearer and nearer…

“Mama, let’s go away from here,” said the girl, pale, pressing herself to her mother and trembling all over. “Let’s go away, Mama!”

“Where?”

“To Moscow…Let’s go away, Mama!”

The girl wept. Rodion became totally confused, his face all covered with sweat. He took a cucumber from his pocket, small, bent like a moon sickle, stuck all over with breadcrumbs, and started shoving it into the girl’s hands.

“Now, now…,” he murmured, frowning sternly. “Take the cucumber, eat it…It’s no good crying, Mama will beat you…at home she’ll complain to your father…Now, now…”

They went on, and he kept following behind them, wishing to tell them something gentle and persuasive. But, seeing that they were both taken up with their own thoughts and their own grief and did not notice him, he stopped and, shielding his eyes from the sun, looked after them for a long time, until they disappeared into their woods.

IV

The engineer apparently became irritable, petty, and now saw every trifle as a theft or an encroachment. The gates were locked even during the day, and at night two watchmen walked in the garden, rapping on boards;² no one from Obruchanovo was hired to do day labor any more. As if on purpose, someone (one of the peasants or a tramp—no one knew) took the new wheels off the cart and replaced them with old ones; then, a little later, two bridles and a pair of pincers were taken, and murmuring even began in the village. They said a search should be carried out at the Lychkovs’ and Volodka’s, after which the pincers and the bridles were found by the fence in the engineer’s garden: someone had put them there.

Once a crowd of them came out of the woods and again met the engineer on the road. He stopped and, without greeting them, looking angrily first at one, then at another, began:

“I’ve asked that the mushrooms not be picked in my park and around the premises, that they be left for my wife and children, but your girls come at dawn, and then there’s not a single mushroom left. Asking you or not asking—it’s all the same. Requests, kindness, persuasion, I see, are all useless.”

He fixed his indignant eyes on Rodion and went on:

“My wife and I treated you as human beings, as equals, and you? Eh, what’s there to talk about! It will end, most likely, with us looking down on you. There’s nothing else left!”

And making an effort to restrain his wrath, so as not to say something unnecessary, he turned and went on his way.

On coming home, Rodion said a prayer, took off his boots, and sat down on the bench beside his wife.

“Yes…,” he began, after resting. “We were going along just now and met Mister Kucherov…Yes…He’s seen the village girls at daybreak…He says, ‘Why don’t they bring mushrooms,’ he says…‘to my wife and children?’ And then he looks at me and says: ‘My wife and I,’ he says, ‘are going to look after you.’ I wanted to bow down at his feet, but I turned shy…God grant him good health…Lord, send them…”

Stepanida crossed herself and sighed.

“They’re kind masters, sort of simple…,” Rodion went on. “ ‘We’ll look after you…’ he promised in front of everybody. In our old age and…it would be nice…I’d pray to God for them eternally…Queen of Heaven, send them…”

The Elevation, on the fourteenth of September, was the church feast.³ The Lychkovs, father and son, crossed the river in the morning, and came back drunk at lunchtime; they went around the village for a long time, now singing, now abusing each other in foul language; then they got into a fight and went to the estate to complain. First Lychkov the father came into the yard with a long aspen stick in his hand; he stopped hesitantly and took off his hat. Just then the engineer and his family were sitting on the terrace having tea.

“What do you want?” the engineer shouted.

“Your Honor, sir…,” Lychkov began and burst into tears. “Show me divine mercy, intercede…My son won’t let me live…He’s ruined me, he beats me…Your Honor…”

Lychkov the son also came in, hatless, also with a stick. He stopped and fixed his drunken, mindless gaze on the terrace.

“It’s not my business to sort it out,” said the engineer. “Go to the local court or the police.”

“I’ve been everywhere…I’ve petitioned…,” said Lychkov the father, and he started sobbing. “Where can I go now? So it means he can kill me now? It means he can do anything? And me his father? His father?”

He raised his stick and hit his son on the head; the son raised his and hit the old man right on his bald spot, so that the stick even bounced off. Lychkov the father did not even sway and again hit his son, again on the head. They stood like that and kept hitting each other on the head, and it looked not like a fight, but like some sort of game. And outside the gate peasant men and women crowded and silently looked into the yard, and their faces were all serious. They had come with wishes for the feast day, but, seeing the Lychkovs, they felt ashamed and did not enter the yard.

The next morning Elena Ivanovna left for Moscow with the children. And the rumor spread that the engineer was selling his dacha…

V

The bridge had long been a familiar sight, and it was already hard to imagine the river in that place without it. The heaps of debris left from the construction had long been overgrown with grass, the vagabonds were forgotten, and instead of the song “Dubinushka,” the sound of a passing train was heard almost every hour.

The New Dacha was sold long ago; it now belongs to some official, who comes here from town on holidays with his family, has tea on the terrace, and then goes back to town. He has a cockade on his visored cap, he talks and coughs like a very important official, though in rank he is a mere collegiate secretary,⁴ and when the peasants bow to him, he does not respond.

In Obruchanovo everyone has aged; Kozov has already died, Rodion has even more children in his cottage, Volodka has grown a long red beard. Life is as poor as before.

In early spring the Obruchanovo peasants saw wood near the train station. Now they are going home after work, going unhurriedly, one by one; the wide saws bend over their shoulders, and the sun is reflected in them. Nightingales sing in the bushes along the riverbank, larks pour out their song in the sky. It is quiet at the New Dacha, not a soul is there, and only golden pigeons, golden because the sun is shining on them, fly over the house. Everyone—Rodion, both Lychkovs, and Volodka—remembers the white horses, the little ponies, the fireworks, the boat with its lamps, remembers how the engineer’s wife, beautiful, finely dressed, came to the village and spoke so gently. And it is all as if it never was. All like in a dream or a fairy tale.

They walk one foot after the other, worn out, and they think…

In their village, they think, the folk are good, quiet, sensible, they fear God, and Elena Ivanovna was also quiet, kind, meek, it was such a pity to look at her, but why is it that they did not get along and parted as enemies? What was this mist that hid from sight the most important things and let only the damage be seen, the bridles, the pincers, and all those trifles which now in recollection seem like such nonsense? Why is it that they live in peace with the new owner, but could not get along with the engineer?

And, not knowing how to answer these questions for themselves, they all keep silent, and only Volodka mutters something.

“What’s that?” asks Rodion.

“We lived without the bridge…,” Volodka says glumly. “We lived without the bridge and didn’t ask…and we’ve got no need.”

Nobody responds to him, and they walk on silently, hanging their heads.

1898